unspeakablehorror | Entries tagged with reviews

I finished the Lilith's Brood trilogy by Octavia Butler recently and I found it a really easy and engaging read. Not sure how much of that has to do with my interest in the story concept and how much is to do with the writing style, but I just breezed through it.

The Oankali are so fascinating in the contradictions they embody. They judge humanity as needing to have our autonomy stripped from us because they believe us to be inherently hierarchical. Eventually it's shown that the Oankali don't have any leaders and make political decisions via consensus. I really enjoyed seeing how their political process works. They do a sort of mind meld where they are still distinct entities but are able to very directly interface with each other to make decisions.

I love the detailed worldbuilding in this series.

I finished Revenant Gun. Kujen is my favorite. Probably due to my fondness of mad scientist villains who want to be immortal. Also because I enjoy characters who have a sense of style. And because I love villains who are clearly enjoying themselves while being unaplogetically ruthless.

I think this trilogy does a good job with its reveals. There are usually multiple plot-related reveals in this book and in the larger series, and I appreciate the way they're constructed to both illuminate details about the worldbuilding and function as satisfying twists and turns.

This series is quite consistent in its style and quality, so I think whatever a person's opinion of the first two novels are will likely transfer over to this one as well. That was certainly my experience. I enjoyed the fantastical math/science/engineering aspect and how that was employed throughout the series.

I feel the second half of the novel is where it really picks up for me--the first half is a bit slow for my taste. I'm a very impatient person so this is something that makes a significant difference to me. Though I've still read much slower novels.

I would have liked for a certain plot thread to have received more attention. I'll have to see if maybe there's a satisfactory conclusion for that one in Glass Cannon.

Anyway, those are a few of my thoughts about this novel.

I'd love to be better at reviewing works. It is just an enormous effort for me to say *anything* about the things I read or watch, and I rarely feel that I'm able to convey even a fraction of my thoughts on such things. Of course, I have this problem in other areas too, but this is one of the places this issue bothers me the most in. I'm also, as I am in other areas, really inconsistent about how much or how well I can convey my thoughts in this area, and that perpetually annoys me.

Thought I'd give some more thoughts about this book. I'll start with the nonspoilery thoughts and then give the more spoilery ones under a cut.

This was an absolutely thrilling story to me. I enjoyed the large cast of characters and the unexpected surprises. My first impression of this story was bafflement because of how it starts. Chapter 1 is 100% historical fiction which is a genre I pretty much never willingly read. So I abandoned it for quite a while. But recently I did try reading it again and finished it quite quickly. The science fiction part gets introduced in ch 2-4, and things only get weirder and more mysterious after that.

A significant part of the story involves characters trying to figure out just what's going on, so there's a considerable amount of mystery, which is one of my favorite genres. There's also a decent amount of action and suspense.

I'm a big fan of sci-fi partly because I enjoy plot-relevant science, and this story certainly delivered on that front. I really enjoyed the large scope of the different scientific fields that are relevant to this story. Astronomy, computer science, nanotechnology, quantum physics, string theory, and of course, the eponymous Three-Body Problem.

I also enjoyed the large character cast of scientists. It's nice to see science fiction with actual scientists involved as major characters, and furthermore with most the major characters being scientists. Even the first chapter, which doesn't really get into the science fiction part at all, is about science.

The first chapter is also absolutely pivotal to providing the context for the rest of the story.

My favorite character in this story is Ye Wenjie. I am also obsessed with the aliens in this story.

More spoilerly review continues below the cut:

( Spoilers Ahead... )

So I’m finally going to talk a bit about the stories I read in the From a Certain Point of View anthology. Spoilers will be included here. I read the one about the garbage compactor monster (The Baptist), since that’s the one everyone always talks about, I read one about the Bith cantina musicians in A New Hope (Not for Nothing), and I read the one about the Emperor (Palpatine).

And here’s my ordering of how much I liked them, from most to least:

1. Not For Nothing

2. The Baptist

3. Palpatine

I had hoped I would find the one about Palpatine a lot more interesting than I did. Maybe it’s just that even though I really enjoy the character, I have high expectations for anything he appears in, so I’m doubly disappointed if those aren’t met. Unfortunately, this wasn’t only my least favorite story of the three, but I would rate the quality as much, much lower than the other two.

Anyway, I continue my analysis, but with spoilers, below. So if you don’t want to be spoiled, don’t read past this (I’m putting in a readmore but I know they don’t always work)

( Read more... )

Tags a certain point of view, star wars, review,

From my Jul, 20, 2017 Tumblr Post.

S	M	T	W	T	F	S
		1	2	3	4	5
6	7	8	9	10	11	12
13	14	15	16	17	18	19
20	21	22	23	24	25	26
27	28	29	30	31

Navigation

Loftwings and Demons

And Sith and Porgs as Well...

Entries tagged with reviews

Oankali Politics

Revenant Gun by Yoon Ha Lee

Reviews

The Three Body Problem: A Review

Archive: So I’m finally going to talk a bit about...

Profile

July 2025

Syndicate

Page Summary

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags